121888-some-problems-with-and-solutions-for-the-current-group-finder
Content ---- I like this idea. Dear Carbine, do this. | |} ---- ---- It's a bit of both really. If you open the gates to high level players as well as incentivise lower level players to do the content then dungeon queues will pop very quickly; more people will get to endgame and everyone wins. Also it would be up to Carbine to adjust the amount of glory added to an adequate level, but the amount must be dependant on having a new player in the party. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- This could be solved by forced rallying to the instance level. Admittedly, even a scaled down character still has many advantages over a pure level 20 (for instance), but would not be wholly trivialized. | |} ---- No- you missed my point. Scaled down DPS still trivializes the level 20 dungeons- that's what I was saying. When my wife returned to the game after about two months off, we ran scaled down three manning it as level 50s (tanks, dps, healer) so she could remember how to heal. In THAT case we did have to be careful not to pull too many mobs at once, but still didn't run into too many issues. But that was with three scaled down toons. Add two level 20 dps in and mobs just die too fast. | |} ---- ---- ---- The most obvious solution is to tighten the scaling more. | |} ---- ---- Sure, but the problem isn't just the damage a scaled 50 does vs a true 20, some of which just comes from a 50's unlocked LAS slots and T4/T8 boni, but also all the extra utility they have, like 3 or 4 IA worth of interrupts or cc breaks. | |} ---- So basically your argument is "please disregard good feedback that would benefit the health of the game because WoW does it and I hate WoW" Edited February 7, 2015 by CRB_Sunshine Edit to quoted inflammatory content | |} ---- Nothing of the sort. 'Good feedback' is entirely subjective. 'Benefit the health of the game'? Again very subjective and something I don't agree with at all. I still play WoW because I enjoy it to a degree. The worst thing that game did was put the majority of grouping content into queues. Just because you want something (convenience) does not mean it is necessarily good for you, and queue finder tools are a prime example of that. It removed a huge amount of player interaction in WoW and I don't want that to happen any further in this game (I dislike the group finder tool in this game too). | |} ---- So you still play WoW, and you might have noticed that it has probably 300x the amount of players that Wildstar does. The reason it has that many players is because, as far as mmos go, it does everything right. It has content for every type of player imaginable, all of the UI systems work and work well, players are rewarded the second they log into the game etc... You can disagree if you like, but the numbers don't lie, the majority of people want these things in the game. At this point, the only thing I'm really bothered about is this game closing/going f2p; which is pretty much guaranteed unless they turn this boat around. There's no shame in 'borrowing' the best parts of other games and implementing them into your own game. Blizzard does it all the time; FF14 did it to WoW and now enjoys a very healthy playerbase. We don't need to re-invent the wheel here, just use what is proven to already work which up until now, Carbine has been doing the exact opposite. | |} ---- You are the only person I've ever seen say a single thing about dailies in capital cities being a problem. Adding dailies to a group finder UI isn't anything WoW has done by the way (for good reason) and the reason it has more subs has more to do with the launch of this game, the bugs, the PvP, itemisation etc etc all of the problems that have been stated 100 times over on the forum (many things that have been fixed or somewhat fixed in Drop 4), not dailies being accessible from the group finder UI, which is the worst suggestion I've ever read on any gaming forum ever. If you want to sit in a Garrison with nothing to do except sit in multiple queues waiting for something to pop, only to never talk to anyone inside the instance because the content is so easy, go play World of Warcraft; it seems to have what you're after. Edited February 7, 2015 by CRB_Sunshine Removed Inflammatory Commentary | |} ---- Dailies are tied to the group finder in FF14 and it works brilliantly. Log on, do a quick dungeon and boom, get a reward. No traipsing back and forth to the captal to speak with some NPC while wasting time. I dont know what your distaste with the idea is but it looks like you're just here to argue so I'll just ignore you. Edited February 7, 2015 by CRB_Sunshine Removed Inflammatory content | |} ---- ROFL what!? 1. The reason WoW has so many players is because Blizzard put out some brilliant RTS then slapped that name and face on a piece of garbage. 2. It absolutely does not have content for everyone. Thinking it even comes close to is completely delusional. 3. Players being rewarded the second they log in, for not doing a damn thing, is in no way a good thing. 4. I want to see these majority numbers of people actually wanting these things; not just speculation that people play WoW because it has these. The only thing in your OP I can agree on is the combining of Dungeon/Adventure/Shiphand Qs. The rest just makes me cringe. | |} ---- | |} ---- ---- Yep- I agree. I wish they would. If they tightened down the scaling and gave rewards for normal dungeons, I'd queue for them. | |} ---- I disagree, but I feel like a relic for feeling like automated group finders are a crap idea for MMORPGs. I mean, I do, I think that's become apparent from me saying I don't queue for anything except to teleport the group to the instance, but I'm in the minority for thinking that an LFG chat channel was a better idea than the Dungeon Finder model (I honestly think the somewhat-server merge of being able to queue cross server is what actually was helpful in WoW, not the automated system that accompanied it). I think it's even less necessary in a game with only two megaservers per region. But people judge the health of the game based on the queues, and I'm part of the problem. I will go a long way, from my guild through my friends list and then to chat channels, before I touch the Group Finder. I haven't had to queue for months (and I've spent less time forming a group than people apparently sit in queue). A lot of Group Finder's problems simply do not exist if you go old-school, though. If you're not queueing, you don't need to have the things you do be queue-able. You can put together a full group for just group quests. If you're not able to find a tank, you can ask warriors, stalkers, and engineers if anyone can go tank instead of blindly waiting for one to show up. You spend time talking to people and before you even step into an instance you can know what people want and expect, how experienced they are, who's leading, who's marking, all of that. To me, Group Finder turns players into Kleenex, easily disposable things you use once and usually forget about. Once DF was introduced, people stopped talking in instances. People didn't communicate, didn't ask who knew fights. Most people just quietly carried on as if they were playing solo and healing, tanking, or DPSing for a bunch of NPCs. I wasn't a fan of the change and I still dislike those systems to this day because of it. But I know that's not a majority opinion. A lot of people just want queues to be popping for whatever they specifically want to do every few minutes whenever they want to do it. Unfortunately, the minority I belong to may be the reason queues are so slow; I'm certainly not helping matters by never queueing for anything and, according to the prevailing theory where GF is a barometer of the game's health, I therefore don't actually exist. | |} ---- The easiest way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of AMP points and LAS slots, block any level gated abilities and force a respec. How many people do you think will tolerate something like that? Developing a scaling algorithm to avoid that is stupid hard and not to be mean, but IMO beyond CRB's ability. | |} ---- Losing LAS slots would certainly cause people to not queue- it just wouldn't be worth learning a new playstyle to run a leveling dungeon. Losing stats is one things. Losing abilities is another entirely. I've accepted that it's hard to get rallying right, and I don't begrudge Carbine for it not being perfect. But it IS a barrier to adding incentives for level 50s to run leveling content. | |} ---- I think it's pretty much beyond anyone's rational ability. It may be possible, but it would take a LONG time, and probably isn't worthwhile. I mean, Carbine might be able to actually do it, but it would require individual class and ability balancing at multiple levels for each dungeon. And this is in a game where all the dungeons are essentially available in a more difficult level 50 version. | |} ---- Then just scale down the stats more. I honestly don't care if the dungeon is a little easier because I or my husband can slot a few more skills or whatever. I certainly did not like how in FFXIV, the autoscaling removed abilities from you. The benefits of encouraging people to queue for lower level content even after capping their level far outweigh the costs. | |} ---- Yeah you're probably right, I was unfair. There's no general algorithm for this, every game would have to build their own and the cost-benefit just doesn't have the ROI. Don't 50's get a reknown bonus for rallying? I could see tossing in 50-100 glory points for successful completion if (and only if) rallied. Yep. | |} ---- Definitely, especially when there are other options available. I think the larger issue may not be that people don't have a reason to run low-level content, though. I think the larger issue may be that people don't have a reason to queue random for low-level content. I love running dungeons rallied down (I think the guild was getting sick of me constantly taking the lower players in the guild through STL and Hycrest so often), but that's the thing, I run with guildies, friends, and RP colleagues. I never queue randomly, and I'm not sure there's a currency reward that would make me want to. I may be a minority opinion (as I've stated previously), but I don't know how large of a minority that is, or especially how many of those people make up support-role players. | |} ---- |} That's all speculation. What leads you to believe that these features are what holds their subs and not the fact that they had huge IPs for over a decade before launching their MMOs? Warcraft/FF fanboys alike are going to play it because they always have. The simple fact that I'm sitting here disagreeing with you about WoW should tell you it does not have something for everyone. Lastly, I think I have a 13 year old cousin who plays WoW... my friends won't go anywhere near that pile of trash and with good reason. | |} ---- It always amuses me when someone who clearly doesn't understand coding or even know how Carbine structured the Wildstar objects and properties - even to the extend they don't know which code language are being used - attempt to sound clever comment on an IT developers ability to code. Framing it entirely differently, I'm pretty sure Carbine is more than capable of this minor feat, but have thankfully chosen NOT to do so, because I personally would hate such a feature immensely. I suspect I am not alone in this. | |} ---- Well, they HAVE implemented scaling down for dungeons- it just doesn't scale down enough . . . | |} ---- ---- ---- LoL Group finder like it or not is a tool that is around to stay. I personally love it and get to meet new folks I can talk to and make friend lists outside of the guild for when we need competent fill in's. | |} ---- The denial here is crazy. 'Fanboys' don't keep a game going, nobody played FF14 before 2.0 because the game was crap simple as, it's not crap anymore and now tons of people are playing it. Perhaps the main reason is that it has content for casual and not so casual players alike. Meanwhile we have people complaining that they can't even complete the introductory dungeon over here and that's not going to change any time soon because the devs only believe in 'muh hardcore'. I'm willing to bet that over 80% of people that reach 50 have never completed a single dungeon. You really don't need me to tell you this because everyone all over the internet is saying it; Wildstar is a 2014 game stuck in a 2004 mindset. I just want them to drag this game into this decade. | |} ---- Nobody played FF14 before ARR because it was unplayable. No amount of fanaticism can help you play an unplayable game, so your logic here is just plain wrong. People complaining that they can't complete the first dungeon is a huge draw, personally. It's a great change from the usual, "play while eating dinner blind folded," style, and if it's keeping those types of players out; good! | |} ---- i have to. agree with this i recently stopped playing WoW AGAIN!! if it had something for evryone IDstill be playing it! i like a limited action bar not 40 ability bar. WoW made me soft and lazy i used to work for everything i did when i played Vanguard saga of heroes (rip ole friend) Im here to sharpen myself up again and wake up to the combat. Yes they have alot of content BUT they are 10years old!!!!!! and it took me 1 month to be bored of wow thistime | |} ---- ---- Objectively wrong; the game was playable, just not worth playing. That's the distinction. Also this game already has a dismal population as it is so the last, last, last thing on earth Carbine want to be doing is listenening to people telling them to keep other players out of the game for arbitrary reasons. It's almost like you want this game to die/ go f2p. | |} ---- Yeah... 6-10 players standing around a single spawn, waiting for it to pop just to get a smidgen of experience is playable. But you're right, that's not why the game died, it's because they weren't handing out rewards for nothing. You really believe that? | |} ---- That's a terrible strawman and I'm not even going to bother with it. I'll leave you with this though; I've presented some idea's to improve the Group finder which are proven to work and work well in other substantially more successful mmo's and I've also pointed out how/why they would benefit the game. If you want to disagree then at least say why you think they're bad ideas, that's how adult arguments work. | |} ---- Again, where is this proof? You see a big population and immediately draw conclusions as to why it's big... but you have absolutely nothing to support those conclusions. As for adult arguments; you've personally attacked me every single time you've responded. The conversation thus far pretty much boils down to: "I don't like these ideas and I think the reasoning behind them is extremely short-sighted." "Yeah, well you're stupid." Yup... adult argument. The problem with that tactic: it doesn't bother me. You're only making yourself look more foolish and providing me with loads of entertainment. Once you're ready to get off that high horse of yours and actually think about what you're saying, then, just maybe, a conversation can develop. | |} ---- Yes please Carbine make it so people can que up for multiple things at once. The reason is you are naturally going to have people's solo que spread out thin. If you had 1 button that just said, "Put me in que for any random PvP or PvE" you would in theory have way more people experiencing low level PvP and all the PvE content that otherwise collects dust while more and more people stop playing because all they experience is questing and they cant experience end game because they get bored before they make it to level 50. I have invited 2 people to the game and both left because of lack of low level PvP. They couldnt play just questing to level 50 just to TRY out PvP... | |} ---- The proof, as another user in this thread has pointed out, is that games with this type of group finder (such as ff14, WoW or even rift) enjoy a substaintially quicker pop time on queues. (this could also be WildStar one day) The rest of your post is just an irrelevant attempt at trolling. | |} ---- I have nothing I can say about Rift as I've never played it, other than: this is the only example you've brought up that can't be easily refuted by taking a look at their legacy. But saying, "It's true because that other guy said it, too!" is far from proof. By that logic, we've both been proven right/wrong several times in this thread. Handing out free rewards creates an expectation; one that has already spiraled out of control in other games; that loot should just flow in freely without having to work for it, which, in turn, then creates an expectation for easier content, shorter content, and ultimately turns the game into a giant ball of crap that has to open a cash shop because they have nothing substantial left for players to do other than browse cosmetics. Upon taking another look at you're OP, there is one other thing I can agree on: trials. People need to be able to experience this game a bit longer than 7 days to decide if they're going to spend the next few months (or even years) playing it. Anyone who disagrees with you isn't immediately a troll. Saying that you're basing your solutions on an false perception is not irrelevant. This is how debate works. | |} ---- first no game out there gives you free rewards for doing nothing. WoW, ffxiv, eq2, etc all give rewards for doing something though. it doesn't reduce the time spent to get to the end nor cheapen the experience but rather constantly gives you something achievable to keep you on the wheel. Just using wow vs our current system heres the real difference.... the endgame most epic looking and best stat gear say has 10 to all stats. here you get dungeons that say give 3 to stats, 20m that gives 6, and then final raid gives 10. takes 3-6 months to get all max gear with constant raiding. on the other hand WoW tiers everything. the endgame most epic gear is still 10 to all stats but the progression allows for more achievable and constantly rewarding feeling allowing you to always feel great about your time invested. dungeons give 1 for the completion rewards, 3 for the random drops, then you get all 3 you start the raid tiers. lfr is 4.5, normals 7 and mythic gives you the 10. the average time to fully gear on a regular raid schedule is 3-6 months. the difference in the way loot is given out does not in anyway cheapen the end game gear nor make it a shorter push to the end. it just gives a constant carrot to keep people feeling like their time was spent / worth it. you may disagree but there is a reason the constant small upgrades all the way to the end has been more succesful since its implementation then dangling huge upgrades with massive time sinks in between each upgrade. Even outside of gaming scientific psychological studies have shown that constant encouragement over a set period of time is far more effective for more people then large encouragement seperated over long periods of time. the idea that lfg, lfr, tirered raiding, etc cheapens the experience is faulty logic. rather you are one of the rare outliers that prefers big rewards after a long period of work rather then a lot of smaller rewards over the same exact period of time. that said.... expanding the lfg to allow for queueing for multiple things so that people can hypothetically have more pops (since more people will queue for everything) is actually a net benefit for the game. it will allow the early experience a larger pool of pops quicker and gives the impression the game is more active a fuller at both the low end and max lvl of the game. there is no logical reason to be opposed improving the tools to get people into groups and into content together. | |} ---- ---- Again, I'm not opposed to combining the Qs, I think that would be a huge benefit to the game, I just don't think we need all the bells and whistles that the OP suggests come with it, especially when a scaled down 50 is pretty much a free carry. I think just the added flexibility of being able to Q for anything would bring the activity we'd like to see, the rest of it is just, "Give me more stuff!" | |} ----